Hume’s Metaphysics and Critique of Metaphysics

This essay explores the sense in which Hume is both a metaphysician and a critic of metaphysics. My interpretation is built on the premise that there is a legitimate form of metaphysics that is used to criticize illegitimate form of metaphysics. Although Hume’s texts do not reveal us an explicit definition of metaphysics, this premise is reflected most clearly in one sentence of the first Enquiry (1.12, SBN 12–3): we “must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate.” I argue that Hume has a modal metaphysics that outlines what is possible and what impossible. Hume may be reasonably interpreted as thinking that certain things are metaphysically possible/impossible, not only what we humans can conceptualize or fail to conceptualize. Metaphysics does not however convey any actual information about the world. This can only be achieved empirically. We can, based on a priori reasoning concerning relations of ideas, comprehend the modal structure of the world, but not anything actual about it. The essay concludes that positive metaphysics and critique of metaphysics coexist in Hume’s thought.